In the justice system: David S Patton pleaded guilty to developing a botnet-based spamming tool used by Alan Ralsky. Patton agreed to forfeit an estimated $50,100 from sales of spamming tools called Nexus and Proxy Scanner. Between January 2004 until September 2005, Patton developed and marketing his illegal bulk mailing tools via a firm called…
Category: U.S.
AT&T temp charged with data theft
A temporary employee for AT&T was arrested today on charges she stole personal information on 2,100 co-workers and then pocketed more than $70,000 by taking out short-term payday loans in the names of 130 of them. Cassandra Walls, 25, of Chicago was indicted on 5 counts of wire fraud and 5 counts of aggravated identity…
Canyons SD thumb drive missing
Canyons School District officials are investigating the disappearance of a thumb drive that may have contained the personal information of more than 6,000 current and recent employees. The flash drive is believed to have contained employee addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth and Social Security numbers. A district-level worker was using it to transfer data…
LexisNexis warns of breach after alleged mafia bust
Information broker LexisNexis has warned more than 13,000 consumers, saying that a Florida man who is facing charges in an alleged mafia racketeering conspiracy may have accessed some of the same sensitive consumer databases that were once used to track terrorists. Lee Klein, 39, of Boynton Beach, Florida, was charged by the U.S. Department of…
FL DOE loses loan promissory notes
Bill Cotterell of the Tallahassee Democrat reports a breach involving the Florida Department of Education’s Office of Student Financial Assistance: The agency is notifying 475 student-loan borrowers that their financial records have been exposed to identity theft because the OSFA managed to lose 1,186 “promissory notes” that they signed when they were going to school,…
Possible Haverhill HS security breach
Did he or didn’t he? Did she or didn’t he? And were they or weren’t they? School administrators in Haverhill, Massachusetts are looking into a police report based on school personnel allegations that a secretary who was allegedly having an affair with a student gave that student access to computer files he should not have…